Friday, 26 October 2012

Fracking Repair Droid

Description: A 22nd century autonomous droid like device designed to repair the subterranean fracture damage caused by Shale and Coal Gas mining called Hydraulic Fracking that was done during the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

IKEA items used for this work that I call the "Fracking Repair Droid" were some IKEA kitchen condiment bowls in stainless steel called "Blanda" - a 50mm diameter size and a 120mm size.

The Blanda bowls are used in the knee joints and for the main top and bottom body bowls. I used 12 small 50mm Blanda bowls for the knee joints, six made up the spherical shape and another six made up the smaller backing cups ... these hide the centre screws that holds the two hemispheres together. In between the two hemispheres is a plate of acrylic machined to emit light from 2 LEDs in each knee joint.

These Blanda bowls used for the Knee Joints on the leg/arms of this "Fracking Repair Droid" were hacked by machining the outer surface in a Lathe, drilling bolt holes whilst in the Lathe, welding stainless steel nuts to the inside to secure the holding bolts positions.

The Body Blanda bowls were machined in a Lathe to produce that brushed/polished surface, drilled for central mounting bolt, and hand drilled to mount the legs/arms.

This "Fracking Repair Droid" is a work of art designed to give emphasis to a backstory about the dangers of Hydraulic Fracking to recover Shale and Coal Gas, hence the name. This hack was created as a means to get attention to the dangers of Fracking and due to the large amount of machining etc.